About

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Marco Pusterla, A.I.M.C. (silver star) is a small magic collector.

How small?

Well, less than 6 foot tall… but no, that’s not what we mean with “small”. A small collector is somebody who loves to collect something, in this case, magic-related items, but whose collection will not be large enough to fill in a museum or a medium-sized house. Still, the collection is large enough to be cumbersome in the average family house and causing annoyance to the wife/partner.

A “big” magic collector was the late Jay Marshall whose collection was vast, as well as Christian Fechner, whose collection’s quality was second to none. Big magic collections are those of David Copperfield, Norm Nielsen, Mike Caveney, George Daily and many, many others. My collection cannot even compete with any of these gentlemen but, still, I love it and I work towards increasing it with quality items.

My main collection interest is material related to Chefalo, the forgotten Italian illusionist who toured the world in the first half of the last century. But, while collecting most of the items pertaining to Chefalo, I happen to have acquired other unusual magical memorabilia and the objective of this Blog is to present and to catalogue some of the most unusual items from my collection, excluding the Chefalo memorabilia. I have another blog dedicated exclusively to Chefalo and my research on his life, but that is a private one and not generally accessible: if you know me (and if I know you), you may try to ask me permission to access the blog and I will decide on case by case.

My main area of collection is ephemeral material and books, books, books! I don’t collect apparatus (uhm… maybe some choice pieces), I don’t have a large collection of posters (ok, some dozens) or the more esoteric items a magic collector wishes to own (stamps, playing cards, magic sets…). Of my small collection, I’m not even completely sure what I have and what I have not got: perhaps this blog will help me remember what I found in my magical research.

It may be that some posts will mention Chefalo and others will talk about magical collecting in more general terms that my own, personal, collection. I may (or may not) talk about events or auctions related to magic history and magic collecting and generally provide my own view on subjects dear to my (collector) heart.

In any case, welcome to the virtual museum of a small, ephemeral, magic collector!